Strasbourg (AFP)

Monaco, which remained on an excellent streak of 12 games without defeat and was one point closer to the podium, was largely dominated and gave way at the very end of the match on Wednesday in Strasbourg (1-0), dropping precious points in the race for the Champions League.

Niko Kovac's players retain 4th place but see their direct opponents, Lille (1st), Paris (2nd) and Lyon (3rd) take off, because they have all won.

The Monegasques, who remained in 11 L1 games with two or more goals, did not even get two chances this time and were very disappointing.

Without an excellent Benjamin Lecomte in goal, the addition would have been much heavier.

Ben Yedder was the only dangerous Monegasque, on a powerful volley at the very end of the first period pushed back by Kawashima (45th).

But on the other side, after a shy first 10 minutes, Strasbourg offered excellent opposition, stumbling for a long time on Lecomte before finally finding the opening by Frédéric Guilbert on the edge of stoppage.

The former Caennais, loaned to Racing by Aston Villa during the winter transfer window, advanced without being attacked over more than 40 meters before triggering a victorious cross strike at 20 meters for the only goal of the match (90th + 1 ).

Strasbourg remained on a good performance with the Lille leader (1-1) and thus follows with a new successful match against another big client of the championship, enough to move a little further from the red zone after a failed start to the championship: Racing is in 14th place, eight lengths ahead of the Nîmes barrage.

© 2021 AFP